Ransom Gillis House
| Ransom Gillis House | |
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| General information | |
| Architectural style | Venetian Gothic |
| Location | 205 Alfred Street Detroit, Michigan |
| Coordinates | 42°20′38.27″N 83°3′8.96″W / 42.3439639°N 83.0524889°W |
| Completed | 1876 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Henry T. Brush & George D. Mason |
The Ransom Gillis House is a historic home located at 205 Alfred Street (formerly 63 Alfred prior to renumbering) in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, within the Brush Park district. It was designed by Henry T. Brush and George D. Mason and built between 1876 and 1878. The structure, unoccupied since the mid-1960s, was "mothballed" by the City of Detroit in 2005/2006, in hopes of restoration in the future. On November 1, 2015, the completely refurbished home opened its doors to the public after a thorough renovation in a joint project between HGTV, Rehab Addict Nicole Curtis and Detroit-based mortgage lender Quicken Loans. The project resulted in an eight-part special that aired on HGTV.
The Ransom Gillis House was built at a cost of $12,000 for Ransom Gillis, a wholesale dry goods merchant. The property was sold by Gillis in 1880. The house and property passed though the hands of four different upper-income families between 1880 and 1919. After this time, the main structure was converted into a rooming house, along with most of the other structures on the street. The carriage house behind the structure was rented by Mary Chase Perry Stratton in 1903, becoming the first home of Pewabic Pottery. The pottery moved in 1906, and the carriage house was then occupied by an auto repair shop, a battery service shop, and finally a filling station, before being torn down and replaced by a restaurant in 1935. The restaurant operated until the 1960s and was demolished in 2005/2006, as part of the city's "mothballing" work on the property.
A storefront was added to the front of the Ransom Gillis House in the late 1930s and was operated along with the rooming house until the mid-1960s. Various attempts were made to restore the main structure in the 1970s, 1980s, and mid-2000s, none of which succeeded.
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